


5 AUs In Which Alexander Hamilton Was Immediately Fired

by justsomerain



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Social Workers, Customer Service & Tech Support, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-23
Updated: 2015-12-09
Packaged: 2018-05-03 02:59:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5273966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justsomerain/pseuds/justsomerain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You know how people like AUs for stuff, and everything is nice, and maybe Burr is the long suffering supervisor?</p>
<p>Let's be real. </p>
<p>Alexander Hamilton would be fired very quickly for being a shit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1. - The Coffee Shop AU

The seventeenth of the sixth, New York City

Alexander is new in New York City, and really, where do you start when you’re new somewhere?

In a city like New York there are always people who want coffee. Students. Tourists. Business men, politicians, hell, even tailors. So coffee shops are always hiring, especially the ones with a big green logo, who go through employees like a hot knife through butter. All the better for him. If he can get hired, than he has something to add to his scholarship to Columbia, formerly King's College.

Sure, he won the scholarship, and it pays for his tuition (and all that because of his essays, who would have thought), but New York is expensive. So he really, really needs this job.

And so he steps into one of those coffee shops, resume in hand (well, in a folder, which is in his hands) and walks resolutely to the counter.

Behind the counter stand three young men, a fourth just entering the back room, name tags neatly pinned on, and he’s half and half convinced that not all of them are their actual names, but that isn’t of import.

One of them, head shorn smooth, stands closest, the shop quiet, mostly hipsters on their expensive laptops typing away. His name tag reads Aaron, and he seems to be the one overseeing it all, more focused than the others with green aprons on, and somewhat of scowl on his face, though it’s mitigated by his retail face.

“Pardon me, are you the manager, sir?”

The bald man, Aaron, looks at him, eyebrows drawn together. “Depends, who’s asking.”

“Oh sure. My name is Alexander Hamilton, and I saw you were hiring.” He smiles widely at the man, who seems to only be scowling more at his question, and he tentatively hands over the folder. Resume, cover letter, motivational essay. He may have gone a little overboard with it, but honestly, it’s better to make sure people know what you stand for, and in the case of looking for a job, that they know for sure that you’re motivated enough to work with them.

Aaron looks at it for a moment, putting down the folder on the counter, eying him up and down, before… Is that a sigh? Is that exasperation? It sounds like it but it would be hasty to decide to withdraw his application now. And he has told himself time and time again that he would not be like that this time.

So instead, he smiles again at Aaron, who just looks at him.

“Your phone number is in here?”

“Yes sir. And my resume.”

The other man looks down at the folder, and nods once.

“You’ll hear from us.”

With that the interview is clearly over, and for a moment Alexander debates staying for a while, to ask burning questions, but he cautions himself. Patience. They’ll call him. They have to. 

His motivational essay was **great**.


	2. 2. - The Customer Service AU

Customer service isn’t easy. It’s a lot of smiling and nodding, even if all you’re doing is sitting behind a telephone, and you don’t have to physically deal with customers. And if Alexander is completely honest with himself, it is the absolute worst, but needs must, it’s for a good cause. Helping people, even if they don’t really want to be helped, but instead just want to complain.

So he sits, or stands behind a counter, and just smiles and takes it. (Or the phone equivalent of it, which isn’t so much smiling as it is sounding like you are calm while you are really not calm and would rather just punch the customer in the face for their ignorance.)

“Washington PC service, I’m Alexander Hamilton, how can I help you?”

It was a big enough company, servicing customers with a great range of electrical appliances, and their issues. Telephone work was not as bad as actually face to face working with customers, but sometimes annoyances can’t be helped. He helps his clients the best he can, and that’s really all he can do, until Mister Washington decides to put him one rank up to supervisor, instead of manning telephones and the desk.

Another customer who figured they knew more about their newest laptop that was actually really just broken, and they should absolutely refund them, because you can’t just sell people broken wares.

“Sir, sir. Please calm down sir. Can you tell me if there are any beeps or messages heard or displayed when you turn your laptop on?”

That garnered him a tirade about how Don’t you know that I know what I’m doing, don’t you patronise me! I know when something is broken, son! 

Alexander muted his telephone during the tirade, rubbing the bridge of his nose with two fingers. Staying calm is absolutely key when you work in customer service. You had to, if you wanted to keep your job, and he wanted to, really. He enjoyed this job, if only Washington promoted him to supervisor. He knew he could do it, and the current supervisor, Charles Lee (”Call me Charlie, dude.”) was an absolute prick.

As the shouting on the other end of the line stopped, he unmuted himself, a forced smile on his face, just to try and disguise the annoyance in his voice.

“Three beeping sounds, you say?”

It was easily solved in the end, really. After all, sounds meant something, and they just happened to have entire lists of diagnostics where five beeps mean this, and seven mean this. Not intellectually stimulating, but he had time in the mean time to write essays, to think about things, and more importantly, work on his education. Even if he wasn’t supposed to do that during work time.

As Charlie liked to tell him during lunch breaks.

If he could, he tried to avoid breaking with his supervisor, but you didn’t always get lucky, so sometimes you had to take lunch with the most annoying, dumbest man in the company.

Charlie liked to complain, mostly about Washington, and today was no different.

“You know, if he knew what was good, he’d just sell the company. He doesn’t know how to run this business, just look at the numbers, really. It’s so obvious. You know, if he had taken business classes instead of whatever the fuck it was that he did, he may have kn-”

It was always the same, and sometimes, enough was enough, so Alexander hit the table with one open hand, rising up, finger pointing threateningly in the direction of Charlie.

“Shut the fuck up, Charlie, you don’t know shit!”

Not the best idea to shout in a break room just as your boss enters. 

And that was that.


	3. 3. - The Social Worker AU

Alexander knows what it’s like to feel like you’re alone in the world. After all, his dad ran off, his mother died when he was a kid, and after that it was foster home after orphanage, into another foster home… Not a lot of fun, actually, more like absolutely terrible. So he knows what it’s like to feel alone and unloved, because the foster system is terrible and he is forever glad he aged out of it (and that he earned a scholarship).

So volunteering at the local youth shelter makes sense, right? It’s a logical step. He knows how it is, and he’s smart, so he can help these kids. That Eliza Schuyler works there full time is a definite perk but totally not the reason he even offered to volunteer. No sir.

So between studies and trying to get an internship at a law firm, he volunteers.

It’s all sorts of kids, some orphans, like himself, others runaways, away from abusive families, gang situations. These kids got problems coming out their ears and really, it’s a good thing that some people, like the aforementioned lovely Eliza, know what they’re doing, some even with degrees applicable to helping. Cause if there’s one thing Alexander knows, and remembers, it’s that if you’re in the position these kids are, you’re going to need all the help he can get.

Himself, he’s not too great at the whole thing, but he tries, and that has to count for something, right?

People still haven’t stopped laughing about the way he introduced himself to those kids, trying to be hip and with it, and occasionally he can hear some kids telling new ones the story. He would rather forget it, really.

First day on the job, hands on, and Eliza had put him with a group of teens, mostly boys, the youngest twelve, the oldest seventeen, almost too old, almost aged out of the system and as happy for it as he had been himself. She’d told him their stories, before throwing him to the lions, and Alexander, thinking himself capable of relating to these kids, had done his best.

“Right kids, I’m new here. I know, I know, boring, but I promise I’m not.” He had hoped on a warmer welcome than the indifference on the kids’ faces, so he had gone full ham. “Now, I am the A-L E-X A-N-” He hadn’t gotten past that, as the volley of laughter from those kids had stopped him dead in his tracks, and most damning of all, from behind him, the giggling of Eliza.

Rapping to introduce himself? 

Decidedly uncool.

But over time, he’d gotten better at it, once he had dropped trying to be cool like the kids. Rookie mistake, despite remembering after the fact how much he had hated it when people had done that to him, he had still subjected those kids to his attempts at being cool.

So now there was trust, there was a bond. After all, somebody who can relate to your life? That’s always appreciated.

One of the older boys, Philip, had taken a liking to him, confiding in him his hopes and dreams of becoming a writer, but there were just always things in the way. He was one of the kids in the foster system, and that could hold you back like anything, but this time, it wasn’t about that.

“Hey, Alex?” 

As Alexander looked up, he could see there was something Philip would rather not everybody hear, the way he kept looking over his shoulder. He raised his head at the teen, eyebrows raised.

“I need your help. You know these kids at school, right? They’re er… One of them called me out, told me to fight him, tomorrow.”

Ah, a familiar problem. He remembered it well, kids being shitty because you’re in foster care, your clothes aren’t cool, you talk too much and you write too fast, and… Or maybe those had just applied to himself. 

“Say no more. Right, so what you do, you go there. Don’t let them think you’re afraid.” 

Philip nodded, looking eager for the information.

“You go there, take one of your friends with you, and then when before he can move, you pu-”

The rest of the explanation was cut short by the sound of somebody, a woman, clearing their throat, and Alexander looked up. A few steps away from them, definitely within hearing range stood Eliza, arms crossed, one eyebrow raised.

No way she was going to be impressed with his explanation.


End file.
